<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Errors of Comedy by Fox_Salz</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795501">Errors of Comedy</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fox_Salz/pseuds/Fox_Salz'>Fox_Salz</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Homestuck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Murder</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 18:15:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,380</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22795501</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fox_Salz/pseuds/Fox_Salz</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The last ruminations of Orphaner Cronus Ampora.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Genuary 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Errors of Comedy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>"Fox will you ever stop writing for Cronus--" No, never. I have too many fish emotions. Fishmotions.</p><p>This was written for the <a href="https://coolscar-zine.tumblr.com/post/190890609618/thats-right-its-coolscar-time-coolscar-from">Coolscar Zine</a>, by the way. You should go check it out.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You’re all up and getting on my last nerve, you mirthless motherfucker. Go on and tell me a real funny joke if you wanna keep your pretty stank blood off my clubs.”</p><p> </p><p>A joke. A <em>joke</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Oh, the Grand Highblood wants <em>humor</em>.</p><p> </p><p>How about your fucking life? That’s been just one laugh after the other, hasn’t it? <em>You</em> are the biggest joke you know, and the whole situation you’ve currently found yourself in is just one huge jest from the universe at your expense—the highest of clowns looming above you, club poised to do its bloody task should you fail to deliver a line that really gets this guy cackling.</p><p> </p><p>A split second suddenly spans sweeps, but all that you can move is your racing mind as the hopelessness of your whole damned useless life plays out.</p><p> </p><p>While you don’t remember being a grub, you remember your Trials. You shouldn’t have survived. Somehow you stumbled <em>just right</em>, however, and emerged victorious. It bagged you a seahorse lusus. For a brief moment you stared into his eyes and were enveloped in the hope of a bright and happy future.</p><p> </p><p>Your lusus did not love you.</p><p> </p><p>That was evident from the beginning, now that you’re older and no longer under his tail. But you were a wiggler, and it is Alternia, and so you knew no better. He had tried to make you sharp and strong, a proper seadweller. You hadn’t wanted any of that. You had <em>dreams</em>. He had little patience for your frivolities.</p><p> </p><p>What you did was an accident. You hadn’t <em>meant</em> to. You just wanted to be loved or left alone—god, no, not alone, you could never stand that. When he swam away from you, you had wanted him back so <em>bad</em> every time, giving up parts of yourself in the hopes he’d love you then. Love you for good. But you excelled at being a disappointment. He’d drug you down in the water, so unbelievably deep, until the darkness was right beneath you. You never knew why, just that he was furious at yet another of your failures. All you had wanted was to get away—</p><p> </p><p>It is a cullable offense to kill your lusus. It is a cullable offense to not have a lusus until you’ve reached adulthood.</p><p> </p><p>Blood swirled in the water around you as you stared helplessly. Then a true visage of horror appeared, stark white tendrils reaching up, up, up from the darkness and grabbing hold of your lusus, dragging him <em>down</em>. There were no doubts in your mind what this creature was. There had been no doubts in your mind that you were next.</p><p> </p><p>Sure enough there were more tendrils reaching out to you. Far too many to get away from, if you hadn’t been frozen to the spot. Yet to your amazement all they did was pat you between the horns.</p><p> </p><p>In your befuddlement you nearly missed what emerged from the depths next, until her terrifying, sharp grin was right in your face.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey there, buoy.”</p><p> </p><p>That was it. You were certain you were going to be culled and fed to the empress’ lusus. Or maybe fed alive. She was rather notorious for being quite vicious, after all, and perhaps it would amuse her to hear your futile screams and pleas.</p><p> </p><p>Instead she swam behind you, grasping your shoulders and leaning down so her mouth was uncomfortably close to your earfin. She <em>complimented</em> you, <em>thanked</em> you for sating the horrorterror she called lusus. Then, as your pan was already reeling, she asked if you’d like to keep it up.</p><p> </p><p>No, not asked, of course not. The empress did not <em>ask,</em> she commanded, even if it was worded like a choice or suggestion. Regardless if she had, though, would you have turned her down? In that moment you saw her as your savior, as a benevolent angel, as a caring empress looking out for a lowly subject, and eagerly you agreed.</p><p> </p><p>And thus Her Imperial Condescension had created a whole new job just for you.</p><p> </p><p>Terrible business, really, killing lusii. But it is a necessary job. Birds must eat worms, cats hunt for their meals, trolls devour plenty of creatures. So too does Gl'bgolyb need nourishment. Few people take the time to consider that, however. They gave you a reputation that always travels ahead of you by a hundred meters, whispers of The Orphaner leaking from their lips. They called you ferocious, unyielding, a monster, a right bastard. You’ve worn those unsavory descriptions as tight as your cape, molding them around yourself until you could almost be fooled by them. After all, there were certainly perks to <em>finally</em> people being too afraid to mess with you.</p><p> </p><p>Especially because you had been so young, and so unsure of everything you did. Thrust into the role of captain and horrorterror keeper—both equally daunting positions. Through the sweeps, though, you managed to cultivate a loyal crew. Sometimes you thought that your lusus might have been proud of you, but you never dwell on those thoughts for too long, more intent on focusing on your work and ship. For a while it felt more like hive than you’ve ever felt.</p><p> </p><p>Then <em>she</em> happened.</p><p> </p><p>The reason why you’re here, the reason you’ve been wracked with guilt and disgust and the need to right wrongs. The need for justice.</p><p> </p><p>You had hated Mindfang in a desperate way. From the beginning you knew she was despicable, a cocky, self serving pirate who delighted in goading you. She always referred to you by that aggravating name, <em>Dualscar</em>. Each utterance grated on your auditory clots, and she could tell. It just spurred her on, and, well. You can admit if only to yourself how gratifying it was to have someone interested in you. Someone who kept coming back. Someone who—</p><p> </p><p>At least, someone you thought might actually care for you. After all, wasn’t that part of being a kismesis? But you’ve realized—too late, far too late—how little Mindfang cares for anyone but herself.</p><p> </p><p>Trolls are simply living pawns to her, pieces for her to move about as she wills. Foolishly you had believed yourself safe from her powers, believed yourself to be more than a game piece. Mindfang, however, is all about her toys.</p><p> </p><p>Perhaps she can’t outright control you, something you keep telling yourself while ardently hoping for its veracity, yet that’s never meant you’re not caught in her web. They say that the fly can never see its hunter’s traps until she’s right upon it. Hadn’t that been just the way here? Like a naive wiggler you had just assumed you could be a proper kismesis to Mindfang, get her to be <em>better</em>. All the while she had been laughing at you as she did things you shudder to contemplate.</p><p> </p><p>It’s your fault. You can’t shake off the guilt for the slave she stole from your ship. Did unspeakably atrocious things to. Who knows what horrors and violations Mindfang did—<em>continued</em> after you left, unable to stomach any more of the sight. Who knows what she’s done before this. It was obvious her actions didn’t phase her—in fact, they <em>delighted</em> her. You’ve forgiven too much in the past. Overlooked so many things in your naivety and misplaced hope. This was it.</p><p> </p><p>This is it.</p><p> </p><p>You’d come here to implore the law to do something. First you’d talked to the Neophyte you know, who had seemed as equally disgusted by Mindfang’s actions as you. Unfortunately there was little she could do. There was no way you’d let this rest, though, and insisted on going to see a higher power, steadfastly ignoring her warnings. So now.</p><p> </p><p><em>Now</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Now you are on your knees, defenseless, Ahab’s Crosshairs on your ship. The Grand Highblood peers down at you, giant club glinting in the faint circus lights hanging above you. He demands you tell a joke.</p><p> </p><p>Spitting out blood on his shoes you sneer up at him and say the only funny thing you can think of.</p><p> </p><p>“Vwhy ask for a joke vwhen you could just look at yourself in the mirror?”</p><p> </p><p>He lets out a furious roar as in slow motion his club comes down, swishing through the air. Then—</p><p> </p><p>Then there’s nothing. At least not for you.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>